My first reaction was to accept some short term memory impariment as an effect of the stress associated with a CH attack--a common response to stress, in general, or serious illness, pain, etc.

I've never seen any medical literature which associated CH with mental impairment AS A CENTRAL ELEMENT OF CH. That's the distinction I'd make with the stress relationship.

Checked the largest medical library in the U.S. and could find only these two items, neither of which are compelling  about loss of memory as central to CH.

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Curr pain headache rep. 2005 Apr;9(2):109-12.
Cognitive processing in cluster headache.
Evers s.
Author information department of neurology, university of mÜnster, albert-schweitzer-str. 33, 48129 MÜnster, germany. Everss@uni-muenster.De.
Abstract
little is known about specific changes of cognitive processing in cluster headache. Studies on event-related potentials (erp) suggest that stimulus evaluation is impaired in chronic cluster headache and in episodic cluster headache during the cluster period, but not in the interval between two periods. Patients with chronic paroxysmal hemicrania do not show this impairment. Unlike patients with migraine, patients with cluster headache do not present with a loss of cognitive habituation as measured by erp. In neuropsychologic evaluations, a reversible decline of memory processing was detected during the cluster attack, but not between two attacks.

LONG-TERM OBSERVATION REVEALED NO PROGRESSIVE COGNITIVE DECLINE IN CLUSTER HEADACHE PATIENTS OVER THE YEARS.

With regard to personality changes, a liability susceptibility to anxiety disorders and to hypochondriasis, but not to mood changes, has been described inconsistently. All changes in alterations of cognitive processing in cluster headache are demonstrated to be mild and do not relevantly contribute to the clinical picture of this disease.

.........

Neurology. 1999 Aug 11;53(3):543-7.
Cluster headaches: Association with anxiety disorders and memory deficits.
Jorge re, leston je, arndt s, robinson rg.
Author information department of psychiatry, university of iowa hospitals & clinics, iowa city 52242-1057, usa.
Abstract
objective: To estimate the frequency of mood and anxiety disorders and to assess memory and executive functions among a representative group of patients with episodic cluster headache (ech) during the course of an acute episode.

Methods: We compared 21 patients with ech with 21 patients with tension headache (th) matched for age, sex, and educational level. Psychiatric diagnosis was made by a semi-structured interview and diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, 4th ed. (Dsm-iv) criteria. Quantitative measures of depression and anxiety were obtained using the hamilton depression rating scale and the hamilton anxiety rating scale (hars). In addition, all patients received a neuropsychological evaluation to assess basic memory and executive functions.

...............
Conclusions: When compared with a group of patients with th, ech patients showed a higher frequency of anxiety disorders during the year before the onset of headaches and significantly greater hars scores during the episode. In addition, patients with ech were selectively impaired in verbal memory.

Pmid:10449118[Pubmed

I had a 6 hour evaluation by two psychiatrists.
They concluded when my headaches stop....my short term will come back...
I said thats all fine and dandy...but there is no cure and then the dumb pale stare....

She said it was from ongoing reoccuring extreme pain. Not because of meds.

For the past three years I’ve been a resident in a retirement community which has an extraordinary culture around the issues of illness, loss of physical capacities, even impending death. Folks recognize the changes in their lives yet do not spend their energy in fretting, regretting, even fear. In the face of the issues of aging there is widespread coping with their limitations by being involved in the life of the community to the degree that their bodies allow.

What we see and admire in our friends is: acceptance of what cannot be changed; coping by doing, as their bodies allow. They don’t deny the realities of a bad day but they do engage as their body allows.

For most of us, we know Cluster is a temporary disability which will pass, once we learn how to take care of ourselves. We learn that fretting about tomorrow won’t change the future. To the contrary, brooding about the future (pain, limitations) tends to lead to chronic distress.

These thoughts lead me to offer a useful way of learning how to cope. At least consider trying this approach. There is a heap of good research supporting it.
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PAIN VS. SUFFERING

Please, reader, do not approach this little essay as an alternative treatment or cure for CH! Nothing outlined here is a substitute for good, sound medical care and treatment.

AT THE HEART OF THESE PARAGRAPHS is the recognition that pain and suffering are rather different experiences which can and must be changed by rather different responses. The pain of our CH is the subject of many of the messages we exchange, the topic fills the medical literature we read, and is the primary purpose for the multiple visits to doctors.

Suffering is quite a different animal. It is an emotional/psychological condition which is often experienced even when there is no pain; it is commonly experienced as fear, anxiety, depression, hopelessness, dread, and fearful anticipation.

Suffering is a normal, even automatic, response to pain, loss (as in death, divorce, or other major losses), and a host of other difficult experiences. However, suffering can be intensified, sustained, and even created quite independently of any of these experiences. In the case of our CH, suffering is too often experienced when we are not having attacks.

The hard paradox is: WE CAN SUFFER EVEN WHEN WE ARE NOT IN PAIN!  This is the paradox which we need to resolve if CH is not to be the controlling experience in life.

As you read our messages about CH they fall into two broad categories: causes, prevention, and treatment; and, the subjective experience or emotional side of CH. 

A sample of the "experience" messages which we see are along the lines such as:

"Ch is horrible; it never stops!" (Or it will never end; or they will go on all my life, etc.)
"I can't bear the pain!"

" Nothing makes me feel better!" (Or no medication works; all have failed and so on.)

"It's not FAIR!" (Or variations along the lines of, "why is God doing this?", "am I being punished?")

"I feel so GUILTY!" --because of how I burden my family or can't work, etc.

"The WORST thing in my life!" (Or some variation on how CH is a catastrophe that I can't handle.)

(Before moving on, you may recognize this concept as the core of cognitive therapy or Rational Emotive Therapy. These therapies are rooted in the basic idea that how we think about an experience creates corresponding emotional reactions--for good or bad. The research on the effectiveness of this approach is very good; outcome research shows that it is an effective form of therapy for depression, anxiety, and addictions of various types.)

Cognitive therapies teach people to recognize:

A. These thoughts may be spontaneous and automatic but,
B. They are not rational thoughts, and so, in their very lack of reason they,
C. Stimulate emotions which are disruptive, distorting, and which intensify the difficult experience of CH and,
D. This style of non-rational thinking and the associated emotions tend to spill out (generalize) into our larger lives affecting relationships, our beliefs in how effective we are, how well we are able to run our own lives, and so on.

IF (and this is often difficult to both see and to accept!) we can begin to see HOW our thinking may not be fully rational and HOW these ways of thinking feed our SUFFERING--then it may be possible to change our thinking habits.

The next step--past a willingness to consider that we may be thinking  this way--is to learn how to dispute with ourselves, that is, how to argue that our own thinking is not reasonable, that it is self-harming. Then we learn how to change these thinking habits (with the goal in mind that by changing how I think about my experience will change how I feel, how my emotions affect me.)

(Understand that this is an outline of a fairly involved process. I'm just trying to quickly summarize how this method of self-help works. Sources of material are at then end.) So, let's go back to the sampling of expressions which we see in our messages about CH and see how cognitive psychology would deal with them.

1. "CH is horrible; it never stops!" First, recognize the despair and hopelessness which arises from this statement: where will this line of thinking take me? So, we learn to respond more rationally, i.e., "Yes, it's hard pain--but it has always stopped even when I don't treat it. I can survive this attack as I have every other one. I need to do what I know helps."  The long term effective of this change in thinking is to increase self-confidence and a sense capacity to benefit ourselves.

2. "I can't bear the pain!" Response: "I always have. I know pretty much what to expect; I've got some medication which helps. I can bear the pain because I always have!"  Notice, this is not a denial of the pain; it's not a "let's pretend". The goal is to deal with the reality of temporary pain; pain which, as bad as it is, has always stopped with our return to reasonable well being. It is the denial of this, our personal experience, which arouses suffering and despair.

3. "It's not FAIR!", or thoughts of GUILT, or that I'm being PUNISHED. Response:  "This is my body not working right; it has nothing to do with morality or sin or fairness. My job is to care for ME, NOW, not fret about fairness." (The consequence of  an appeal to "fairness" is that we become victims. The problem with "guilt" is that we have to find a "sin" which justifies having CH or we must convince ourselves that we have chosen CH to avoid something or to hurt someone, hence, our sin. In the end, this line of thinking is not reasonable or rational and serves to create more suffering.)

4. "CH is the WORST thing in my life!" I often see folks express in their messages a sense of anticipation, of feared expectation about the next attack of cycle. There are few responses which lend themselves to the development of suffering better than this one: waiting for pain; looking for the next sign; assuming that it will come. Reflect a moment on what the impact is on our emotional well being and you may begin to appreciate why changing thinking habits is of value.  How to respond?  "It is the worst experience--when it's occurring--then it's over and I return to my full life. My whole experience says that I'll come through the next  one--when and if it comes. I don't have to wait and look for it; there is living to be done, now."

If you are interested in exploring this way of altering your thinking habits there are three readily available sources of information:

1. Go to Amazon.Com and put "rational emotive therapy" in the book search box.

2. Go to Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or and get the catalog. (This is the homebase for Dr. Albert Ellis, the founder of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy.)

3. Look for a paperback, FEELING GOOD: THE NEW MOOD THERAPY, David Burns, M.D. While this title is written around the issue of depression, the general framework can be applied to coping with cluster headache.
  This is true for many of the titles you will find at #2; REBT and  Dr. Burns' cognitive restructuring approaches have been used for a wide variety of problems--the general framework is fairly universal, in this sense.

Just caught the "UK" with your signature.

Good support group:  Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or

Yesterday, on our local educational radio station, a timely discussion with stwo researchers working on this issue.

Findings are emerging suggesting there is a complex interaction between brain cells which account for memory and cells which are involved in specific physical diseases/disorders. What they suggested is: appears to be a formerly unknown interaction beween these two cells types which does lead to short term memory impariment.

No final conclusion--but most interesting.

A few reasons come to mind (if I can remember them all). Topamax does it to me (and others), the stress of an attack, depression from knowing what you have and are dealing with, increasing severity of the attacks leading to lack of sleep which also leads to loss of nervous system functions including memory loss.

I tried over 40 meds for chronic ch and I found that a few of them effect memory.  I also have and suffer from depression initially brought on my the ch but stayed even after my ch stopped.  I can not remember anything and I cant even add or subtract.  That is what I was told depression can do to you.  Is that a possibility with you?  I was told by others on this site over the years that they suffered memory and concentration issues with ch and no depression.  So lets just pray what ever is causing it goes away and your memory returns soon.

A good herbal that you can easily grow yourself (and does not take the same kind of dedication as psilocybin ) is Lemon Balm.  anti-anxiety, anti-viral, memory boosting, makes a great tea, even makes a nice herbal smoke...

Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or

-Ricardo

Dave - I too suffer from this. On the rare occassion that I have a pain -free day, I fire on all cylinders and my almost photographic memory is up like a dream. On the dark days of shadows, I forget all kinds of stuff, get lost driving to places I go everyday, etc. I call it "brain fog"

I used to take topomax, and I blamed it on that, but I have been off of that for 18 months, and I take NO other meds. I believe that my brain is just trying so hard to process the constant pain that it has no buffer left for anything else.

The thing that sucks is that I am a software architect for NASA.... Having an intact memory and sharp focus is necessary.

My memory was greatly affected by Topomax and gabapentin. It still hasn't bounced back to normal and neither has my concentration. I used to have a nearly photographic memory also, and I could concentrate for hours on something. Now it is a struggle to write and email and listen someone talking to me at the same time. And even if I do manage to comprehend what is being said to me, I still often forget it. Work/short term memory was getting very damaged, even to the point that even physical reminders did not work. I am now 10 months off Topomax, 9 months off Gabapentin, and still have the side effects wreaking havoc and not only in the memory.

I had a MRI done last month, and it confirmed the lesions in the white matter are very much present. So I don't know if my memory will ever come back. It has gotten better, and the more I can sleep and have PF days, the better it gets. But with both migraines and CH, those days are far and between.

Kinda getting used to what I call my Forest Gump days. But when I want to do something more challenging than petting my cat and eating, it gets annoying as heck. And just the knowledge of "I used to be able to do this" is the most traumatizing in a way. You get used to pain and get through that, but things like memory problems are what really give me the blues.